


a crown called content

by arriviste



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-23 03:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20332966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arriviste/pseuds/arriviste
Summary: “You’ll have to get your father a new crown,” he said, with his head in Fingon’s lap.





	a crown called content

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Увенчанный довольством](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21181823) by [rio_abajo_rio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio_abajo_rio/pseuds/rio_abajo_rio)

Maedhros’s hair _had_ been very beautiful. It had fallen past his waist in a tumble of red-brown glory, and shone in the golden Tree-light with amber, with bronze, with carnelian. It was hair that had demanded special and unusual adornment – or at least among the Noldor it did– and his father had made him a copper coronet when he was only a child. Curufin, making a crown for a High King after Fëanor had died in a blaze of flame, had made it for Maedhros and Maedhros alone: he had used three parts gold to one part copper, and the new crown had been the colour of flame itself, a bright thing meant only ever for Maedhros’s bright head.

It had been lost in Angband, and that was a good thing. On Maglor, it would have been a mockery; on Fingolfin, it would have cast a long shadow.

(“Dipped in blood,” Celegorm had said bitterly; “that’s what they say about us all, anyway! As if precious Fingon hasn’t got just as much blood on his sword.”

“Precious Fingon has blood on his dagger,” Maedhros said coldly, “from cutting me free from Thangorodrim. I don’t want to hear anything more about crowns, figurative or literal.")

“You’ll have to get your father a new crown,” he said now, with his head in Fingon’s lap.

Fingon said distractedly, “I’m sure someone’s seeing to it," his fingers busy in Maedhros’s hair.

It was one of the few places that didn’t hurt Maedhros to be touched, figuratively or literally. It had been washed, and washed, and washed again after the rescue, and it had been Fingon who had washed it, the warm water a dream of comfort when it touched his scalp. The water had run down the sides of his face like the rain had on the mountain, soft as tears, and the silver basin had still been grey and brown with old filth and blood after the third wash.

Then the knots and mats had been cut out, and that too had been Fingon, his eyes as stricken as they had been when he had put his dagger to Maedhros’s wrist, and his steady hands as careful with the scissors. He had apologised with each clip.

As if Maedhros cared about his hair!

Well, he would have sworn he didn’t, and never had, and never would again; but once it was clean, and cut, and washed again a fourth time with lavender, it had fallen around his shoulders in a bell of bright red-gold, smelling sweet. It had been so long since he had not been revolted by any part of himself that he had been broken again.

He had still barely recognised himself in the electrum mirror that had been held up for him to see the result later, so gaunt and haunted he looked. He doubted many others would have known him after Thangorodrim either, had it not been for the colour of his hair: it bound him inextricably to the past, to the prince of Tirion he had once been.

“I would have recognised you _bald_,” Fingon said fiercely when he shared this. “- Although I’m very glad you’re not.”

“You would miss your proprietary rights to it,” Maedhros teased, because Fingon had not given that task up yet; he still washed Maedhros’s hair for him, and combed it, and braided it for day and for night. He had been only too eager to encourage Maedhros in his passionate desire to do things for himself, one-handed. But his hair was still Fingon’s task, and Maedhros supposed that made sense; once it was longer, he could bind it up himself, or work on some passable kind of twist, but for now he needed the help.

(“Or you could simply use a _domestic_,” Curufin had said, upper lip lifting, as though he would ever allow any but his kin or his wife to touch _his_ hair. “I have nothing against you making a child of Indis tend you like a bodyservant; the lesser line should serve the higher, after all. But it’s almost obscene, the way our dear cousin devotes himself to it.”)

“I would,” Fingon said, and his hands in Maedhros’s hair stilled, but stayed, like he been caught at something.

“I’m glad of the help,” Maedhros said, and then, because Fingon sounded too serious, “I need all I can get to look passable! I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s grateful you take pains with me.”

“That’s not why I do it,” Fingon said, and Maedhros tipped his head back against Fingon’s knee to see him better.

Fingon was looking down at him with his grey-blue eyes dark and unfathomable, his jaw set like it did when he was about to do something very foolish, but that he thought was right. “I would want – I do want proprietary rights.” 

“What?”

“I don’t want anyone else to touch you like this,” Fingon said, and rubbed his thumb over the warm swell of bone behind Maedhros’s ear. Maedhros closed his eyes, and Fingon went on; it seemed that he could speak more easily without Maedhros looking at him. “I want to help you, of course I do! But it’s a selfish thing I’m doing, not a kind one. Or not only a kind one. I like being kind to you.”

“You have no competition for the task, if that’s what you mean,” Maedhros said.

"I want no competition for it, ever – and that does make me terribly selfish, perhaps. I should want you to be happy.”

“You make me happy,” Maedhros said, and opened his eyes. “You do. _Fingon_.”

“Oh,” Fingon said, as though he was reading a library in them.

Then there was an awkward fumble of limbs as Maedhros tried to get his head free, to rise from the cradle of Fingon’s lap with only one hand, and no way to put weight on the wound where the other had been, not yet; Fingon tried to help him, without particular success, and it was some time before they were unwound, and their faces were level, and Fingon’s hands were back in Maedhros’ hair, cupping his face.

Fingon's mouth was warm, and Maedhros closed his eyes and let himself find simple pleasure in the touch of it, the questing pressure. It was very gentle, as he had not quite expected it to be, and when it ended at last, Fingon's eyes were as questioning as his mouth had been, but starburst-bright under their thick black lashes. 

“Proprietary rights,” Maedhros said, and cleared his throat. “For ever, if you want them,” and they kissed again, less carefully.

When Fingolfin was crowned, it was with a new crown made by one of his followers, an echo only of the beauty of the one Fëanor had once made for Finwë, of the blood-red, bloodied crown Curufin had made for Maedhros. It shone the pale yellow of new gold and seemed to promise that the world might yet be made anew on this far shore, that there could yet be a new, bright beginning despite darkness and death and doom.

Maedhros wore only Fingon’s braids in his red hair, and he wore them like a crown.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [here](https://arrivisting.tumblr.com/). Hello!


End file.
